areas of research

did you know?

Ames researchers developed lead-free solder, an alloy of tin-silver-copper that is environmentally benign and has been widely adopted by the electronics industry as a universal bonding agent in all types of electronic devices from smart phones to computers.

green, red, blue

employees

3,500 employees5,000 users/year

animals on site

Brookhaven National Laboratory

location

areas of research

nuclear and particle physics; photon sciences and nanomaterials; and crossdisciplinary research on climate change, sustainable energy and Earth’s ecosystems

did you know?

Brookhaven’s Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider holds a Guinness World Record for producing the highest man-made temperature—4 trillion degrees Celsius—while recreating conditions of the early universe in near light-speed particle smashups.

3,000 employees4,000 users/year

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

location

areas of research

did you know?

Fermilab built the first proton accelerator dedicated to the treatment of cancer patients in a hospital, the Loma Linda Medical Center in California.

aerial of Wilson Hall

Main Injector accelerator

opened

1967

lab colors

blue, orange

employees

1,700 employees4,600 users/year

animals on site

American bison, coyotes, geese and 285 other bird species

Idaho National Laboratory

location

Southeast Idaho

areas of research

nuclear science and engineering; national security research and testing; energy and environmental sustainability

did you know?

The technology for the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine was pioneered in the desert of Idaho. From 1953 to 1994, thousands of sailors trained there using full-scale submarine prototype reactors.

did you know?

Berkeley Lab claims 13 Nobel prizes: 10 for work done here, 2 for work by lab scientists who did the work elsewhere, and 1 for a large contingent of lab scientists who were members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Peace Prize.

did you know?

A Los Alamos theorist created the arXiv, a free archive of scientific journal article preprints that revolutionized communications within the scientific community, in 1991. Today, arXiv contains close to 800,000 full texts, receives 83,000 new texts each year, and serves about 400,000 distinct users every week.

National Energy Technology Laboratory

location

areas of research

high-efficiency boilers, turbines, fuel cells and other power systems; emissions controls for coal-fired power plants; carbon capture and storage; efficiency and environmental quality of domestic oil and natural gas exploration, production and processing; and materials for extreme environments

did you know?

The United States has reduced its NOx emissions 88 percent and SO2 emissions 82 percent since 1970, essentially eliminating acid rain. Major contributors to these reductions have been the scrubbers, low-NOx burners and selective catalytic reduction systems demonstrated through the clean coal programs managed by NETL.

opened

1977

lab colors

blue

employees

2,500 employees

animals on site

Oak Ridge National Laboratory

location

Oak Ridge, Tennessee

areas of research

energy-related science and technology, from basic research to the development and demonstration of breakthrough
materials, processes and systems

did you know?

The 1994 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to Clifford Shull for neutron diffraction techniques developed at ORNL’s Graphite Reactor, the world’s first continuously operating nuclear reactor. Today at ORNL and other labs around the world, neutron diffraction is used to reveal the underlying structure of materials and to create new materials for use in energy technologies, electronics and many other areas.

did you know?

In the early 1970s, PNNL invented a technique called optical digital recording that stores information as a track of dots about 1 micron in diameter. This innovation served as the critical design element for compact discs and players, later manufactured and sold worldwide.

animals on site

cottontail rabbits, red foxes, jackrabbits, coyotes and several species of waterfowl and birds of prey

opened

1965

lab colors

copper, silver

employees

4,500 employees800 users/year

chemical conversions for sustainable energy

efficient, secure power grid

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

location

Plainsboro, New Jersey

areas of research

nuclear fusion and plasma physics

did you know?

Laboratory founder Lyman Spitzer conceived of the laboratory during a Colorado ski trip after being inspired by thoughts of fusion as a boundless source of energy for generating electricity. The laboratory was founded as a classified facility under the code name “Project Matterhorn” in 1951; it was declassified in 1958 when it halted bomb research and became the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in 1961.

areas of research

did you know?

To support U.S. nonproliferation efforts, SRNL has been involved in repatriation efforts for proliferant nuclear materials from around the world; in 2012, SRNL earned White House recognition for a three-year project to remove plutonium from Sweden for secure disposition in the United States.